AccueilRe-conceptualizing the social

AccueilRe-conceptualizing the social

Re-conceptualizing the social

Re-conceptualizing the social

First Jean Brunhes Conference

First Jean Brunhes Conference

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Publié le lundi 27 juin 2011

Résumé

The first Jean Brunhes conference will focus on current re-conceptions of the social. To what extent do new perspectives in Human Heography focusing on concepts such as practice, performance, assemblage, network or system represent an epistemological shift? Do they add to, redefine or replace more traditional concepts within human geography such as space, place, territory or region? What kind of knowledge do these perspectives produce and how do they transform the relationship between knowledge and action? What are the political consequences of these perspectives? And what’s next?

Annonce

First Jean Brunhes Conference « Re-conceptualizing the social »
University of Fribourg, Switzerland, October 28-29th 2011

Jean Brunhes (1869 – 1930), the first professor of Geography at the University of Fribourg between 1896 and 1907 was a pioneer of Social Geography. His focus on social issues as well as his contribution to the first ever schoolbook with a human geographical focus set him apart from his Anglo-Saxon, German and French colleagues at the time. Despite wide public audience and appreciations of prominent colleagues like Elysée Reclus and Paul Vidal de la Blache, Jean Brunhes was not well integrated in the French mainstream academic geography and developed his own approach off the beaten tracks of Parisian universities.

Today, the debate on the ’nature’ of the ‘social’ and the ideas of Jean Brunhes gain momentum again. His depiction of social geography as the careful observation of thousand local facts in order to grasp the complexity implied by relations echoes the questions raised by many current approaches in social sciences. Assemblage thinking (in the line of Latour or Delanda), more-than-human or post-human geographies, but also the renewal of practice theory following Theodore Schatzki’s work moot alternative conceptions of the social and its spatiality. These recent perspectives offer novel analytical strategies for research on social and spatial problems. However, they also question the very core of more traditional concepts of the social. What constitutes the social and what differentiates it from the non-social? How are relations between the social, the natural and the technological reconfigured?

The first Jean Brunhes conference will focus on current re-conceptions of the social. To what extent do new perspectives in human geography focusing on concepts such as practice, performance, assemblage, network or system represent an epistemological shift? Do they add to, redefine or replace more traditional concepts within human geography such as space, place, territory or region? What kind of knowledge do these perspectives produce and how do they transform the relationship between knowledge and action? What are the political consequences of these perspectives? And what’s next?

We would like to encourage presentations that address the questions above. We thus welcome papers with an epistemological or theoretical scope, but also empirical contributions, which address following questions:

  1. 1. Tracing and mapping the social: how can relationships that generate the social be identified, traced, understood and represented? What is the scope of different tracking and representation methods?
  2. 2. Experimenting (with) the social: how are new conceptions translated and applied in action research, political actions, teaching curricula and practices? 
  3. 3. Thinking the social: how do post- or non-human geographies change our conceptions of the social? How do they redefine the focus, the questions, the methods of research in Geography, on geographical concepts such as space, place, scale and territory? What are the blind spots and what is lacking in the new conceptions of the social?

Confirmed keynote speakers include : Jacques Lévy (EPFL), Claudio Minca (Wageningen University/Royal Holloway), Jean-Luc Piveteau (University of Fribourg) and Benno Werlen (Friedrich Schiller University Jena)  

Organizing Committee : Christine Bichsel, Olivier Ejderyan, Olivier Graefe, Joris Van Wezemael

August 12th 2011: Submission deadline for an abstract of max. 300 words.

October 1st 2011 (for accepted presentations): Submission deadline for the extended abstract of max. 3’000 words.

Please send your abstract to Olivier.Ejderyan@unifr.ch

Modalité de sélection des propositions:

Les participants seront sélectionnés par le comité scientifique après évaluation de leur proposition de communication. L'évaluation se fera en fonction de la clarté du projet de l'intervention prévue (approche théorique, concepts abordés, résultats attendus...) et son adéquation avec les termes de l'appel à communication.

Comité scientifique:

  • Dr. Christine Bichsel
  • Dr. Olivier Ejderyan
  • Prof. Olivier Graefe
  • Prof. Joris Van Wezemael

Lieux

  • 4 chemin du Musée (Université de Fribourg, Unité de Géographie)
    Fribourg, Confédération Suisse

Dates

  • vendredi 12 août 2011

Contacts

  • Olivier Ejderyan
    courriel : Olivier [dot] Ejderyan [at] unifr [dot] ch

Source de l'information

  • Olivier Ejderyan
    courriel : Olivier [dot] Ejderyan [at] unifr [dot] ch

Licence

CC0-1.0 Cette annonce est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universel.

Pour citer cette annonce

« Re-conceptualizing the social », Appel à contribution, Calenda, Publié le lundi 27 juin 2011, https://doi.org/10.58079/ipv

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